A network of nature lovers

Neighbours, friends, families with children, green professionals and nature lovers from all over the country visited NIOO during the Open Day on 3 October. And those 1900 people had a great day! In the after movie a couple of them explain what they’ve seen and done.

With about 50 different activities, sunny autumn weather, music and enthusiastic people, it was a day with a very warm atmosphere. A day to remember.

Even before reaching the main building's entrance, the first activity was in scope. Visitors ‘pedalled’ water up from the pond in front of NIOO, then used their muscle power to filter it and pump it back again – clean and all. Great news for the aquatic macrofauna. Inside, people discovered DNA in the lab, tracked goose migration routes, found out why a virus actually makes tulips more beautiful, and much much more.

Networks in nature

Ecology is about how everything in nature is connected. How is nature structured? Who collaborates with whom? With the theme ‘Networks in nature’, the Open Day highlighted both these natural networks and the human ones. Who does NIOO collaborate with? Who works here? Visitors had the opportunity to engage in in-depth conversations with many of us.

There was an extra network for children, too. They collected up to eleven cards featuring our ‘friends in nature’. These were species studied by NIOO. Examples included Connie Caballo the Konik horse, the dandelion Peer de Blom, and Roos van der Gas (a greenhouse-gas-eating bacterium). At the end of the scavenger hunt, the children received a diploma as ‘young nature researchers’ signed by one of our professors – yes, dressed in their robes…

Ecology in the (spot)light

The experimental gardens and the other buildings were accessible too. Digging for soil animals, fishing for water fleas, or learning how a woven hedge acts as a kind of ‘ecological barbed wire’ – there was plenty to do outdoors in the beautiful weather. And in the buildings there were rewilding beasts to find, lamps in several colours to show the effects of light pollution or birds looking for the perfect mate.

The tour guides showed their groups around on various locations and in the science café tent subjects from water quality to West Nile virus and audio books to quizzes took centre stage. Next to the BioMusica singer-songwriter, and the valued fries and snacks of course.

Next time in 2029

NIOO organises the open day every three years, during the Weekend of Science. The next edition will be in 2029, when the NIOO marks its 75th anniversary.

In the meantime, the after movie and a photo selection will be shared on our NIOO website (nioo.knaw.nl/opendag) and social media as well, for our visitors and everyone who likes to take a peek into a day full of ecology.